The U.S. FDA has finally let fly with a draft rule for regulation of lab-developed tests (LDTs), an 83-page document that delves into the legal controversies regarding whether the agency has the requisite statutory authority. However, Allyson Mullen, a director in the D.C. office of Hyman, Phelps & McNamara P.C., told BioWorld that the emergence of this draft rule doesn’t mean Congress won’t eventually be dragged back into the LDT fray, particularly if stakeholders litigate to overturn the draft.
The U.S. FDA is still sorting through the feedback for its proposal to modestly align the Quality System Regulation with ISO 13485, but the agency has posted a draft four-year plan for regulatory harmonization that is substantially broader in scope than just quality management system considerations. While this proposal addresses a significant need for device makers working in multiple markets, the objectives include an assessment of at least nine non-FDA harmonization proposals by the end of fiscal year 2025, a clear indicator that harmonization will continue to be every bit the slog it has proven to be in recent years.
The U.S. FDA’s Accreditation Scheme for Conformity Assessment (ASCA) program is one of a number of efforts on the agency’s part to reduce the drag on premarket medical device submissions, but the agency has now converted the ASCA pilot into a full-blown regulatory program. Fortunately for both the FDA and industry, most of the guidance groundwork is already in place, making the ASCA program a ready-to-go method for streamlining at least one element of premarket applications for medical devices.
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) posted a Sept. 6 hazard alert for the Scandinavian Total Ankle Replacement (STAR) device by DJO Global, a subsidiary of Wilmington, Del.-based Enovis Corp. TGA said the polyethylene insert used to eliminate friction between the device’s moving parts has demonstrated a higher-than-expected fracture rate, and that the device has been delisted from the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTg).
Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) for medical devices does not present the same policy footprint as DTC ads for drugs, but Congress recently asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate device advertising to evaluate whether reforms are needed. GAO responded to the effect that while the literature lacks any useful studies on the question, some stakeholders believe that DTC device ads give short shrift to risk information, a finding that may prompt Congress to enact new legislation on the question.
Amsterdam-based Royal Philips NV reported that it has come to terms with customers and end users of its respiratory equipment to the tune of $479 million, which will reimburse for the cost of these systems. The problem for the company is that the settlement does not affect any personal injury cases, and thus represents only a partial closure of a controversy that has dogged the company for several years.
Two U.S. federal government departments recently issued a series of guidelines for their handling of mergers and acquisitions in a draft that has provoked both support and opposition from observers. Barry Nigro of the George Washington University School of Law said he is concerned that the presumption that a transaction is necessarily anticompetitive will prompt litigation over that presumption and thus bog down the process of reviewing these transactions.
The U.S. FDA’s concerns about the 510(k) program over the past decade-plus are practically the stuff of regulatory urban legend, but the agency has just unveiled a trio of draft guidances to address some of those concerns. Perhaps the most significant of these is a draft guidance for selection of a predicate device for a 510(k) filing, a document that may come across to industry as little more than an attempt to limit the devices that a manufacturer can recite in a 510(k) filing.
The U.S. FDA recently posted another round of recalls for the Cardiosave line of intra-aortic balloon pumps (IABPs) by Datascope Corp., advising users to make sure they have a backup unit at the ready in the case of device failure. However, the agency noted that “alternative treatments are limited,” a clear sign that this market lacks competition, most likely due to a lack of incentives for the private sector to invest in this class of devices.
India is taking steps to separate how it regulates medical devices and pharmaceuticals, as it works to reduce its dependency on imports of devices and turn itself into a global hub for med-tech innovation and manufacturing.
